Assessment of ecological profile of industrial products according to environmental legislation

Ecodesign tools represent an effective means for the implementation of management and product development models, aimed at meeting the requirements of the recent environmental directives issued by the European Union. The research work carried out focuses on the development of an easy-to-use procedure for the definition of the Ecological Profile of industrial products, making the improvement of product's environmental performances easier, as well as in compliance with latest environmental regulations issued in Europe. The proposed methodology is based on the design process defined by ISO/TR 14062:2002, and allows engineers to take into account the whole product's life cycle. In particular, a new Eco-design tool is presented, which aims to evaluate the product's ecological profile, defining an assessment rate scale based on an "eco-friendliness" index. In order to demonstrate the validity of such a tool, named LCCE (Life Cycle Compliance for Ecodesign) Correlation Matrix, it was applied to two different case studies. In both cases it provided useful indications for both improving the eco-friendliness of the product, underlining the improvement options which can be implemented to achieve a higher level of its environmental performance during the whole life cycle, and verifying at the same time its compliance with mandatory requisites of environmental legislation.